


What's Worth Remembering

by Darth_Videtur



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jakku, Memory Loss, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Scavenger Rey (Star Wars), Sith'ari, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 13:37:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21037106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Videtur/pseuds/Darth_Videtur
Summary: This is an AU of an AMAZING AU called Counting Days/Edge of Night (Rule of Two) by Lightpoint, and it's a gift for an equally AMAZING author. Go read it! It’s awesome! (This is Au!Au because although Palpatine, aka “Red,” truly does return in a young clone body on Jakku, he has a wee memory problem as a result of Chaos overloading some of his wires in the Afterlife. Rest and care, my dude. Rest and care. You’ll get your Empire back before too long.)





	What's Worth Remembering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lightpoint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightpoint/gifts).

“Do you ever wonder what  _ that  _ one looks like?” Rey asked without warning. 

Red followed her calloused pointer finger into the stars and focused on the two rings surrounding the pale blue and green planet with its trails of magenta atmosphere. 

He stared at it hard, and the answer came to him as though he had always known it. Perhaps he had. 

“That’s Atrisia,” he murmured. “Planet of emperors…” 

“Emperors?” Rey laughed. The sound died away into the still night air. “I thought there was only one Emperor.” 

“There…” he paused and frowned. One Emperor sounded  _ right _ , but he didn’t know anything about that. 

Yet. 

Gaps filled the places where his memories should have been. Yet every day spent on this hot planet with Rey of Jakku, digging through the scraps of metal and twisted wires, it felt as though muddy, angry water (water, imagine that!) were building up behind a dam, all in his head. A little more, each day, more pressure, more urgent need to know things and… be. 

He was not complete, but he would be. That quiet voice reassured him every time he began to despair of the dust and wretchedness of this place. He did not belong here, and neither did Rey of Jakku. 

He turned pale eyes on her again. Smiled. She was so easily excitable. So ready for the next adventure. He wondered why he was not. Nima Outpost's only medicine woman, a wizened old crone, had pronounced him something more than two and less than three decades old. Beyond that, she said, there was no telling how old he might be exactly. 

He felt a hundred or more at times, especially when the quiet of the cool nights set into his bones and made him remember phantom aches and sharp pangs of a past he could not recall. 

"Red? Red!" 

He grunted when a hard finger found his ribs. 

Rey rolled onto her stomach next to him and brushed dust from his leather shoulder harness, a futile effort. Her white teeth shone in the dark, impressively straight teeth considering her circumstances. "Where do you go?" 

His thin lips quirked up in polite confusion. "Go? I've not gone anywhere." Another piece to the puzzle that was him. He didn't react like the others here on Jakku, all snarls and threats and territorial displays. Rey called him a 'gentleman' and laughed. 

Well. One thing he knew. One thing he remembered. He wasn't gentle. 

But he was a man, and Rey's sleek curves were far too close for comfort now. He shifted to one side, away from her gentle hand and looked at her face. He could not afford to think of her that way. 

She glared at him. "You know what I meant. In your head. You get very… quiet, and I can tell you are thinking about something that...." she offered a small, surprisingly dark laugh. "That isn't here."

“Most things aren’t here,” he quipped. “This is Jakku.” 

“So tell me about those emperors.” 

He watched her roll onto her back once more, her head coming to rest near his ribs on the rags covering the harsh metal of the AT-AT’s unburied side. She stared up at the distant planet, dark eyes catching the interest of the stars overhead and reflecting it back. It amazed him how patient she could be, and he liked it. 

“There’s too much to tell in one sitting,” he said, smiling. “After all, there were over fifty of them since twenty-five thousand years ago.” 

Rey’s eyes narrowed and shifted to him. “How do you know that, and not know who you are?” 

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He reached out and tapped the end of her nose. “Memory loss can be highly selective, and don’t ask me how I know that, either.” 

She giggled, wriggled closer, closing the distance he had purposefully created between their warm bodies. “I won’t. So… these emperors…” 

“They ruled with the help of an ancient and powerful order of swordsmen,” he said. “Their word was law, and the martial arts they developed became known as Jar’Kai. The swordsmen used dueling blades.” 

_ Dueling blades, in his hands, blood red and light as feathers but for the priceless metals in his slender hands. A wild laugh, a scream of pain. Blood on his tongue, fear feeding him -  _

“Dueling blades?” Rey asked. “No shields?” 

He shook his head, and the fragmented memories slid away with disturbing silence. “No shields. They used their aggression as a defence of its own.” 

“Oh…. I like that idea.” Rey slid closer, and closed her eyes with a contented sigh. “Like my staff.” 

“Perhaps a little,” he hedged, feeling rather insulted at the thought, and having no idea why. However, Rey was deliciously warm tonight. He did not pull away. “But different too. Two hands, two directions, two attacks. It’s… it’s a magnificent feeling.” 

She opened her eyes and looked closely at him. “You’ve felt it, haven’t you.” 

It was no question. 

He nodded. “I have.” 

No judgment, just acknowledgment filled her face, and maybe a bit of jealous longing. She brought her head down against his arm, staring up. “You’ve been many places, and you can’t remember a single one. You’ve fought with… with dueling blades, and you can’t remember why you did. It doesn’t seem fair.” 

“I remember how,” he told her, and he truly did. Even now, he could imagine sliding into position, guard up, eyes darting to an opponent’s face, looking for the fear he found so delicious. It was a memory in his muscles that had not been lost. A confidence there too, sure-footed and ready. “I could fight again, if I needed to.” 

“You already did,” she said. “Remember, that band of Skitters last week? You used those two pieces of pipe like I’ve never seen anyone use them before. Not exactly dueling ‘blades,’ but... I believe you.” 

He offered a wry smile, reached out very carefully and touched her far shoulder. “I couldn’t let them cart away my favorite scavenger.” 

She snorted. “Your only scavenger.” 

“The only scavenger who matters.” 

She stared. He stared back. 

The moment broke with a distant howl. Rey shuddered and pressed against him. “What else do you remember? Do you remember where you were born?” 

_ A blue planet, water as far as the eye could see, verdant forests sliding into teeming swamps. Joy, anger, fear, pain….  _

“No.”

“What about your family?” 

He pushed the fragments away before they could even materialize.  _ Don’t go there.  _ “Not much at all. Like you, I suppose. Faint images.” 

“Mine are coming back for me,” Rey said with conviction. 

_ No they aren’t, child. They never do.  _ He said nothing, but nodded. 

The silence of the night expanded around them again for several minutes, Rey settled onto his shoulder, her warmth spreading into him. Red blinked into the inky darkness and found it comforting where others might have trembled. A family gave names, meaning, purpose, didn’t they? But he was not without purpose. 

_ Red. I don’t even have a name anymore.  _

_ A name, yet. You have one. It’s waiting for you. You have to go out and find it soon. _

“Red?” 

“Hm?” ‘Red’ would do for now, he decided, liking the way it sounded on Rey’s tongue, and besides, she gave it to him. 

“Do you remember the day we met?”

He laughed, and this time the sound carried clear across the desert sands. 

“I will never forget that, Rey of Jakku.” 

She smiled at him. “Good.” 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Go read Lightpoint's stuff. It's so awesome!  
2\. Go pester Lightpoint for more Counting Days 'verse. xD Kindly pester!  
3\. Ask the universe to give these two crazy kids, Rey and Red, a break!  
4\. As usual, I love hearing your thoughts!


End file.
